YPG/PKK terror group keeps using children as combatants

TAL ABYAD, Syria

The YPG, Syrian branch of the PKK terror group recruited about a dozen of Kurdish and Arab underage children, according to video footage released on Friday.

A total of 11 children were seen carrying the posters of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK ringleader imprisoned in Türkiye, and pieces of rag symbolizing the terror group.

The use of children as armed combatants, by terror groups or otherwise, is expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.

The YPG/PKK's use of child soldiers was also highlighted by the US State Department’s 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report.

The use of children as armed combatants, by terrorist groups or otherwise, is expressly forbidden under international humanitarian law and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.

The YPG/PKK's use of child soldiers was highlighted by the US State Department’s 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report. The report underlined that the YPG/PKK continued to forcibly recruit boys and girls as young as 12 from refugee camps located in northwestern Syria.

This week, locals in Aleppo, Syria -- near northern areas controlled by YPG/PKK terrorists -- said two brothers, just 9 and 10 years old, had been kidnapped by the terror group.

Also, a January 2020 UN human rights office report said that according to its findings, the YPG/PKK is using children as fighters in Syria.

In July 2019, Virginia Gamba, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, signed an action plan with the SDF – the label the YPG/PKK terror group uses in Syria – to end and prevent the recruitment and use of minors under 18, but the terror group has violated the plan.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US, and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.